While browsing a literal wall of tax forms on the second floor of the post office on Pine Street, L.G. Solomon made a personal confession.

"I'm kind of a last-minute guy," he said, thumbing through the profuse paperwork.

Like many on Monday, Solomon went to the post office seeking to snag forms he needed to complete his 2010 tax return.

Monday was the deadline to file federal income tax for most Americans.

"I do this every year, and I always say I'm not going to do it next year," said a penitent but smiling Solomon, a retired military firefighter and real estate agent.

He wasn't alone.

Jonnette Speegle of Buffalo Gap and her husband also were browsing outside the IRS office on the post office's second floor.

When it comes to taxes, "we just don't move real fast," she said.

"We're just too busy having fun," a grinning Speegle said, as the retired couple dug through the overflowing forms.

Sedate cessation

While Solomon and others scrambled to find forms and get their returns postmarked by midnight, local tax preparation firms and others said Monday marked a fairly sedate end to the 2010 tax season.

That doesn't mean business hasn't been good, many firms said, Monday's lull perhaps explained in part by some filers forgetting they had until April 18 this year, rather than the more familiar April 15 deadline.

"A lot of people came in on the 15th, and all got their taxes done," said Lupita Garcia, a secretary at Abilene Bookkeeping's location on Grape Street. "Basically a lot of people didn't know about the extension."

The tax business wasn't busy "at all" a bit before noon Monday, but the season overall had been good, Garcia said.

There were a number of changes to the 2010 tax laws, said Joe Melson, a tax partner at accounting firm Davis Kinard, which made the season "somewhat busier" for the venerable Abilene business.

And Melson also said some clients forgot the extended deadline.

"We had some people who got a little nervous on Friday the 15th," he said. "That did throw some of our clients off who were expecting to come in and get their return that day."

But the extra day helped the firm, he said, because it meant additional time to prepare returns.

Richard Pike, owner of the Liberty Tax Service franchise on South 14th Street, best known for its waving Lady Libertys and Uncle Sams, said his office was "not as busy as we would hope" on Monday morning.

"But we've still been pretty active," he said, adding that he had high hopes for more business as the day wore on.

Postmaster Lewis Alambar said the tax season marked the second year in a row for no extended hours at Abilene post office locations on tax day.

"We're just reminding people that they can use our automated postal center at both the main office and Southern Hills," he said, which allows the latest filers to push all the way to midnight and still have their returns postmarked in time.

Alambar said a fair amount of people showed up earlier on Monday to mail their taxes.

"We had a pretty steady line up until about 10 a.m.," he said.

Terry Johnson of the West Central Texas Center for Economic Opportunity said the organization had only been seeing two or three people every hour or so come in for tax help Monday.

"Normally we're doing 20-plus returns a day," he said. "Our target population, people who don't have to pay, they've already filed. Toward the end, these are the folks who are waiting until the last minute because they're paying."

Looking through the downtown post office's collection of forms Monday, Kenneth Hays, 63, of Abilene, was in that boat.

"I want to wait until the last minute before they get my money," joked Hays, who said he ends up owing the IRS every year.

Taxing

Abilene CPA Jerry Love said that trying to determine whether current tax laws are fair is a kind of loaded question.

"It's kind of like asking, 'Is this person beautiful?'" he said. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So someone who is paying little to no tax may think it's wonderful, while people paying a significant amount probably aren't happy."

Some may argue Americans aren't paying enough in taxes because of the deficit and national debt, he said, while others believe lowering taxes would stimulate the economy.

But many American taxpayers are probably paying a lower total percentage in taxes than they think they are, he said.

"If you look at global taxation rates, there are a lot of places paying a lot more tax than we are in the United States," Love said, though Americans do pay many hidden taxes in day-to-day life — everything from fuel taxes to the tangle of taxation one finds on a typical phone bill.

"If everyone you did business with had to disclose what amount of that is going to state, local or federal taxes, it would probably be an eye-opener," he said.

A Gallup Poll released Monday said half of Americans believe the amount they pay in federal income taxes is too high, while 43 percent consider it about right, and 4 percent too low.

The 50 percent now calling their taxes "too high" is within the 46 percent to 53 percent range found each year since 2003, according to Gallup's website.

The figure, though, is significantly lower than the 65 percent recorded in 2001, before implementation of former President George W. Bush's first round of federal tax cuts.

Those cuts will be around a while longer, both Love and Melson said.

"(Congress) did pass the extension of what they call the 'Bush credits' or the 'Bush tax cuts,' but that's only a two-year provision," Love said. "So we basically have those for '11 and '12, but we're back to the debate about what do we have after that."

To Melson, though, the decision added a "two-year window of somewhat certainty" in tax law.

He said, "2013 is kind of the unknown year, so that's where people should start looking for new legislation.".

One major change for tax preparers this year was mandatory electronic filing for many preparation firms, specifically those who filed more than 100 returns.

"The IRS likes it because it reduces their paperwork dramatically," Melson said of electronic filing. "It gets into their system faster and speeds up the refund process."

According to the IRS website, a record number of people chose to file electronically over the weekend, topping 100 million for the first time.

By early Monday morning, the agency had received almost 101 million e-filed returns, representing an 8.8 percent increase from last year, according to the IRS website.